The Ancient Miracle
by Starwind Rohana
Summary: Cassie's lost in the woods. Then, quite by accident, she stumbles on a surprise. Mind you, it's quite difficult to 'stumble' on a spaceship 150 yards long. But it's definitely carrying a surprise. A very Cheerelative surprise. And now there's trouble...AU
1. Chapter 1

Something Terrible.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Animorphs, I don't own the Yeerks (as if I'd want to), I don't own the Chee or anything to do wit the Pemalites. All KAA's. I'm just playing, and playing in unauthorized manner.

Chapter One.

My name is Cassie.

Just Cassie. Or not _just_ Cassie, but that's all the name I'm going to give you. To let out any of the rest of it would be dangerous to me. Dangerous to my friends. Dangerous, especially, to the people I'm trying to protect.

Who knows? It might even be dangerous for the entire world for me to tell you my name. Although, right now? Probably not.

My name is Cassie, and I'm in a bad situation.

We were in a battle. Me and my friends, against half a dozen Hork-Bajir.

In case you don't know what a Hork-Bajir looks like: They are seven feet tall and covered with blades.

Of course, we weren't exactly harmless either.

I was a wolf. I could move quickly, silently, my teeth flashing out of the night! I wove between the Hork-Bajir and tore at their legs, their tails.

Jake, on my right, a tiger! A leaping, biting fury!

And, behind me, I glimpsed Ax. Ax in his own, alien Andalite body, his scorpion-like tail snapping again and again.

I was horrified. I did not like this situation. For some reason, I liked it rather less than I usually like battles.

I hated the look in the Hork-Bajirs' dying eyes. Even though I knew they had Yeerks wrapped around their brains, I couldn't help feeling revulsion as I brought about the death of slug and slave.

I felt revulsion at myself.

And so, when Jake yelled, Okay, everyone! Back out! …

I left.

Of course, it was a lot more complicated than that. But the crux of the incident? Is that I walked out of the Animorphs. Walked out of the battle. And, for some reason, walked out of my home.

We'd been fighting in the woods.

I went home, still shaken from the argument. I stared at the wall for a long time. Then I packed a backpack, and went for a walk.

I really, truly meant to come back.


	2. Lost a home, found a spaceship

Disclaimer: As usual, don't own 'em.

Chapter Two.

I walked out into the woods. Not doing anything much. Just walking, and thinking, and staring absently at the trees.

I thought about the choice I'd made last night. Laughed bitterly. I'd made that choice before, once. Hadn't kept to it. Had gone back to the fight, after making a deal. I wondered if it'd be the same this time around. It probably wouldn't be.

I was sick of it. Sick of fighting for my life, for Jake's life, Rachel's, Marco's. Sick of having to face people who didn't have a choice. Sick of watching the way the fight changed us.

I was still a normal kid. I wanted to be. But I didn't like the way I'd grown harder. Didn't like the way we all had started to see things in a military way.

I walked and walked. Didn't much care where I was going.

I saw trees and didn't see them. I saw the way I was going and didn't notice it. I heard sounds, the sounds of the forest, and it all turned into a jumble in my brain.

What if I'd doomed the resistance?

Was it better to win or to lose if winning meant you lost everything that made you human?

Maybe I'd already lost it. See, a bunch of friends and a decisive team act somewhat differently.

You assign roles to people. This is not a good thing.

I walked a bit further. My heels were starting to ache. So was my stomach. I sat down on a tree stump and pulled out a bottle of water and a sandwich. Watched the animals. A couple of blackbirds were building a nest in a birch tree. Two squirrels chattered at each other.

Their lives were simple. They didn't have to worry about morality, or about grey slugs that crawled through your ears.

I put the water away. I got up and started walking again, not much caring where I went. The black-and-gold pattern on the forest floor slowly shifted.

Some time later, I looked at my watch.

Six o'clock.

I'd been walking for almost nine hours?

I glanced around. Didn't recognize anything. Where was I?

I stared around me. Okay, so I was lost, but I could morph and –no, I couldn't, because I'd quit the fight, and Jake had said…

Right.

Well, I knew roughly which way I'd come by. And a human doesn't walk very fast. I certainly hadn't been. Even so, nine hours of walking would –No, not now. Concentrate.

Of course, I hadn't exactly been going n a straight line, either…

What would my parents think?

Oh, no… what would they be going through? I'd been gone all day. Even running, even if I miraculously found I'd been walking with a curve, it would easily take me another three or four hours to get back. And my luck was never that good.

I felt like crying.

_Come on, Cassie,_ I told myself.

There was a rocky spur protruding from the hillside not far away. I walked over to it and began to climb. Maybe I'd be able to see the town from here.

When I was halfway up, I heard a noise.

It was strange. A kind of very deep rumble, with a whistling, singing edge to it. It sounded like an earthquake singing soprano. And it had come from above me.

A pebble skittered off the stone.

I looked up.

The sky was blue. And there was something in it that flickered against my sight.

A spaceship?

I crouched low against the spur. Wriggled my body sideways against a low wall. Stared up. My breath held in my chest.

Nothing. Not that that meant anything.

After a few minutes went by with nothing happening, I dared to move again. This time, I went forwards. I inched along the rocky outcrop. I looked out over the forest.

Mountains behind. Trees everywhere. No sign of the sea. No sign of the city, unless it was that dark grey smudge of smoke in the sky.

Hopeless.

I considered. I had a backpack. What was in it? Two bottles of water, a bottle of coke, a packet of biscuits, a bag of crisps, and a spare jacket. All of which could possibly be useful. But not very.

Okay. So I had food, I had clean water, and I had an extra jacket to keep me warm. I also had an elevated view of the forest from where I was, so if anyone was coming, I would hopefully be able to see them.

_What to do, what to do…_

"Right", I said aloud. "So I track around, using this big rock as a landmark. I try and find something familiar. If after an hour I haven't found anything, I come back here. I eat, try to start a fire, and keep an eye out. Tomorrow, I'll start walking back, and if by midday I'm still lost, I morph osprey."

Not the best plan I'd ever had. But right now it was the only one available.

I started walking back the way I'd come. Kept an eye on the rock.

Nothing. Unless you counted the incident in which I ripped my ankle coming through what felt like a field of three-inch thorns.

I hobbled back to the outcrop. Ate the crisps. Drank the water. Put my jacket on. Already the forest was getting dark. I could hear owls hooting. I found a small hollow at the base of the outcrop and crawled into it.

It took me another half an hour to get a fire started.

A quarter to eight. I warmed my hands. Looked out at the forest.

I couldn't sleep. I fed the fire and climbed the spur again. The stars were clear in a sky free of light pollution.

And then I heard it. A humming, thrumming noise that went right down through my bones. A sound that touched my blood and made me shiver.

I stared up at the sky.

I saw the ship by not seeing it.

It wasn't visible. It didn't block out the stars. But it bent their light around itself, and in some indefinable way I could see the faint trace of the curving starlight.

It was very high above me.

I stared up at the ship, at the lines that were only visible when my eyes moved, at the transparent waver in the sky.

It moved towards the mountains. How did I know? I registered where the lines were, and where new lines appeared and old ones vanished. It was hard, because the lines were so fleeting and faint, but I could do it. And I saw it move towards the mountains.

It went very slowly.


	3. Where there's trouble

Disclaimer: Still don't own anything…

Chapter three.

I woke up, curled in the hollow with my back to the stone.

My face and arms, which had been facing the fire –which, by the way, had almost gone out –were uncomfortably warm. My back and legs, pressed against the stone, were freezing cold. My toes? I couldn't even feel my toes. Come on, I could barely feel my fingers. And my whole body ached from sleeping on the ground.

The little cave had done some work to contain the heat of the fire. Not nearly enough.

I got up. Picked up my bag. Crawled out of the hollow. There was mist on the ground, I saw, curling among the trees and plants. But the sky was clear.

What was the most important thing? Getting back to my family.

No. The most important thing was the spaceship.

Wait. I'd walked out of the fight, hadn't I? I'd let go of any responsibility for mysterious spaceships. I had no reason to go hunting around the mountains for a strange invisible flying thing. None.

If it could cause damage, it was the responsibility of everyone on Earth. Including me.

I didn't know what was on that ship. I didn't know where it was. Heck, I didn't even know where _I_ was!

"Great," I said aloud.

I spat on my hands and, for what felt like the tenth time, began to climb the rock. It was harder than it had been the day before. Dew had condensed on the rock, making it slippery. Fortunately it wasn't a particularly tricky rock to climb, even when wet.

I looked out over the forest. Mountain slope, stream, tree, tree, tree, blackbird, still no sign of the way home. I heard the breeze rustling in the trees. I heard the birdsong. I saw the sky, a dozen marvelous shades of blue, with a golden-white sun just clearing the horizon. I could feel the still calmness of nature around me.

I heard a whumph. Wait, what?

The stone shook slightly beneath me. Like something had collided with the ground –something huge –and sent a brief quiver through the Earth.

I looked over my shoulder at the mountain behind me. Then I looked, awkwardly, at the mountain beyond that.

The other mountain was covered in trees, mostly. But there was a crown of bare earth around the peak, dustily orange-brown. And there was something else there, for a second, glimpsed against the mountain. A glimpse of pale green.

The spaceship.

Well, that just about settled the issue.

"All right, fine," I said. "Nothing to worry about, Cassie. Just walk over there on a gimpy ankle, sneak around, see what's up, then break a promise and morph bird. Just to get home. And leave whatever I find there to somebody else."

I looked down at my ankle. It had stopped bleeding, but I really didn't like the look of it. It was swollen. The scratches were red lines. Possibly it was infected.

Didn't matter. It'd go away when I morphed. When I broke my promise.

I looked at the mountain again. No spaceship was in sight.

I was going in anyway.

----

Around midday, I stopped for a rest.

I'd come quite a way. It had taken me most of the morning to get around the mountain I'd been on. Then more time coming up the one I'd seen the spaceship on. And I wasn't even all that far up. I mean, yeah, I was quite a way over the usual ground level, but that was less than a tenth of the way up the mountain.

My ankle throbbed. It had slowed me down some. And the infection –if there was an infection –was making me thirstier than usual. I drank the Coke and wished I had more.

The light seemed to behave oddly. It went dark, then brightened. I got to my feet and swayed.

"Come on, Cassie," I said to myself. Just a few more miles. Just a few more hours. Just a few more…

I staggered off up the slope. My ankle protested, sending waves of pain up my leg. It was okay. I could cope with it. I was me. I was Cassie. I had done strange things. I had done terrible things. I had nearly been killed on a number of occasions. I could handle a little pain.

Up. Up. Gritting my teeth and pressing down on my knee as I climbed. Trees that looked like people, standing in warped and twisted ways. Contorted as though with pain.

Yeah. I have a sick imagination sometimes.

Then, abruptly, I was staring at the dirt. I had collapsed.

I turned my head. A stream made a comfortable chuckling, warbling sound not far away. A woodpecker thumped at the trunk of a tree. I smiled vaguely. The sun was pretty. Made pretty patterns on the trees. I suddenly felt ill. Something was wrong with me.

_Get up, Cassie._

I hauled myself up. Stumbled to the stream. Knelt on the bank and splashed freezing cold water on my face. It woke me up, made me feel more alert. Then I reached for my leg, pulled up the trouser leg, and stared at my ankle.

It looked horrible. The cuts were oozing a clear liquid, mixed with blood. It was worse than it had been earlier. Far worse. Some voice in my head said, _that's wrong, infections can't progress that fast._

And I answered: _Well, this one has. _

I took a deep breath. Reached for my spare jacket. I yanked at the sleeve until the fabric tore. Then I pulled my sock up over my ankle, dunked the strip of sleeve in the stream, and wrapped it quickly around the swelling. It hurt. I clenched my teeth and did my best not to scream. At least the cold water helped numb it.

You think you've been in trouble? Wait until you walk up a mountain, alone, with an infected ankle, looking for an alien spaceship that may or may not contain twenty Hork-Bajir-Controllers.

It was getting dark again by the time I got near the top.

I found another cave. At much the same time I heard voices.

I froze. Went dead still for a few seconds, listening intently. Then, as quietly as I knew how, I worked sideways into the cave and hunkered down.

It was a reasonably-sized cave. Good for sheltering in. Not so good for hiding. No trees near the entrance.

I listened.

They were voices all right. But –and I'd kind of been expecting this –they didn't sound human.

One more point: Neither did they sound like Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, or any other alien I'd seen.


	4. Spying and Confusion

Disclaimer: I owneth not the aliens, nor the Chee, nor Cassie.

Chapter Four.

The voices were…strange.

Not harsh Hork-Bajir. Not hissing Taxxon. The voices were low and warm. They sounded a little like growling, but the language they were using –one that I couldn't identify –had a fluid tone. Occasionally one made a chuckling noise, like laughter but not, which I guess was amusement. There were at least two of them, because the voices had the rhythm of a conversation.

I held my breath. Pressed into the dirt. Prayed frantically in my head that they wouldn't come near.

I heard feet moving through the undergrowth. But I couldn't see anything.

Then, to my relief, the footsteps and the voices moved away. The sound of moving vegetation faded, as did the laughing, throaty voices of the aliens.

I wondered what they were.

Chances were that, whatever species they were, they were Controllers. Almost all the aliens on Earth are Controllers. The only exception is Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthil. Ax. Our resident Andalite. The Chee are another exception, but a very weird one. They're androids. Highly intelligent, highly advanced androids.

I didn't know what these aliens were, but I had to prepare for the worst. Had to assume they were Controllers. Had to assume they didn't have my best interest in mind.

It would have been nice to have Ax around. He might know what they were. Their capabilities. Whether the species had gone voluntarily or not.

But Ax wasn't here. I was. And, at least for now, it was up to me to find out what was going on up here.

Up here. Up on a mountain, miles from civilization, with an infected ankle and very little food, only a few tens of metres from a group of unknown aliens who might kill me if they saw me. My only asset the ability to morph. My greatest hindrance the fact that I could not allow them to see it, or me.

I was in trouble. But I had a duty to the people of Earth.

Slowly, reluctantly, I began to crawl forwards. Out of the cave.

----

I didn't morph.

I should have, of course; looking back, it would really have been the most sensible course of action. But I wasn't quite thinking straight, and in my head was the repeating mantra that I'd promised Jake I wouldn't morph, because it was too great a risk. If I was going to spy on these people, I'd do it as me.

You could make the case that by spying I was helping the battle, and so would have been allowed to morph because I was no longer separate. But I didn't see it that way. I still don't.

I crept out into the forest, as quiet as I knew how to be, using bushes and trees to hide myself. Every nerve I had was on edge. My ears strained to hear every tiny, unnatural noise.

In my puny, human form I advanced on a ship full of aliens.

Before long I saw open space through the trees. But before that I heard voices again. The same sort of voice I'd heard before. That laughing, growling voice speaking its fluid language.

And when I came near to the open, I stopped. Huddled down, half-hidden by a bush. Trees between me and the open air. Hopefully enough space for me to be invisible, and –if necessary –to have a head start.

And then, I saw them.

They were weird. Any alien is weird, just look at Ax. But what made these creatures so weird was their familiarity.

They walked upright, on two legs. Those legs bent the other way from human legs. They had two arms, one on each side, and a tail that came to their funny bent-back knees. They were covered in soft golden –fur? Yes, it was fur. Hair, anyway. It looked soft.

The one I got a clear sight of was facing away from me. All I saw of the others were a few flashes of yellow and a bounding movement.

They were only there for a few seconds, and then they were gone.

But there was a feeling…I can't describe it. There was a _feeling_ about them that just seemed warm and good. I saw them only for a few seconds, but just seeing them, they sort of exuded warmth and happiness.

They were happy. I could just tell. It was in the way they moved.

It was in the way they were.

I went back to my cave. Found a kind of nice in the wall at the back. I climbed in and huddled there, wrapped in my jacket.

It took a long time for me to fall asleep.


	5. Back to base

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

A/N: To my most persistent reviewer, SouthernBelle, who deserves an answer: Yes, this story will primarily focus on Cassie –she's at ground zero, as it were. However, there will be chapters focusing on the other Animorphs.

Chapter five.

**Jake.**

My name is Jake.

And I was getting worried.

I hadn't felt too bothered when Cassie didn't show up to school that morning. After the argument of the night before, I hadn't felt much like attending either. And the others looked similarly grumpy.

By lunchtime, though, I was starting to feel odd. Like something wasn't quite right. It wasn't like Cassie to miss school. And about half an hour before the end of the day…

"She's _missing?_" I yelled. The people around us glanced over and I lowered my voice. "What do you mean, missing?"

Marco looked uncomfortable. Also slightly ticked off. "I mean missing, all right, Jake? Her parents phoned the school around lunch, asking if she was here. Apparently she walked off into the woods and they were getting worried."

"Walked off _when_?"

"I don't know, man. Before school, after breakfast? It's not like the grapevine cares."

I breathed out slowly. "So they've been asking around for her…"

"Yeah."

"Say it."

Marco feigned innocence. "Say what?"

"Marco, man!"

"Fine." He dropped all pretense of joking. "Jake, this is not going to end well. Remember what happened last time."

Oh, yes. I remembered all right. I ran a hand through my hair. "She'd really better not get into any more deals with Controllers."

"Or get nearly stuck as an insect."

I closed my eyes and told myself it was nothing.

Wrong again, Jake.

----

Rachel. Five minutes before school. Day after Cassie mysteriously went AWOL.

"She still hasn't been found."

"Oh, man. Tobias?"

(I haven't seen anything, Jake.) He looked about as disturbed as a red-tailed hawk can get.

"Where'd you look?"

(Everywhere. The woods around her home. Most of the town. The woods a few miles out from her home. Nothing. Unless she's in morph, she's nowhere near.)

"Just wonderful." I kicked a can. Just a disguise. By now I was really getting worried.

I don't think I paid attention to a single word in class that day.

We met up after school at the barn. Morphed birds of prey. Searched.

Found nothing.

Marco went wolf. He found a scent trail, faint from rain. Followed it. An hour later, he'd run several miles and we still hadn't found her.

(She went some distance,) Tobias commented.

(Yeah. On foot,) Marco said. (Can't you lot scout ahead? This trail's more or less a straight line.)

I rose higher in the air, scanning the woods. I flew along the vector Cassie had taken so far. I flew a long way ahead. And then, with my keen falcon's sight, I saw something.

It was the remains of a fire.

That didn't tell us anything, of course. It could have been days old, hidden in the rock like it was. Anyone could have lit it. But it was the only lead we had.

Except not quite. Because in that little hollow, next to the blackened wood, we found some other stuff.

Blood, red and sticky, was smeared on the rock. And some clear yellow gunk. It smelled like Cassie, according to Marco, and he told us she did not smell well.

Ax was able to tell us what was wrong.

Septicemia. Then, seeing Marco's blank face, he added, blood poisoning. Cassie has injured herself badly. 

"How bad is septicemia?" I asked impatiently.

Ax hesitated. I could see he didn't want to tell us.

"Ax!" Rachel exploded. "Just tell us –"

The infection is potentially fatal. 

My heart just about froze solid.

"Fatal?" I said quietly.

Under normal circumstances, with access to standard human medical treatments, the infection would be manageable. Serious. But curable. But Cassie is, to the best of our knowledge, far away from human civilization.

Potentially fatal.

I turned away, feeling sick.

Cassie was lost, wounded, and infected with something that would probably kill her.

"How long?" I asked. I had to know. Had to know how long we had to find her before…

I am not entirely sure of the progression of human illnesses. However –based on what I know - 

"Just tell me."

Two or three days, Prince Jake. Probably less. 

Silence.

"But…she can morph," Rachel said. "Won't that…"

"Yeah," Marco said. "Sure, she _can_, Rachel. But she _won't_. You know Cassie."

"I know she's not an idiot," Rachel said angrily. "She'll morph to save her life."

No, she won't, Tobias said.

"Yes, she –"

She won't morph, Rachel, Tobias said, because she won't know she's sick. _We _had no idea what that stuff was. Cassie knows symptoms. She'll know she's ill. But she won't know what's wrong with her. And so she'll stay human. Until she's too weak to morph. And then… 

She would die.


	6. Carrying out Duty

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the concept of this story.

Chapter Six.

For the second time in two days, I woke up on a cold stone floor with my ankle hurting. This time, though, there was a difference: Instead of being warm on my front and cold on my back, I was freezing cold all over with uncomfortable flushes of heat which seemed to come from nowhere.

I groaned and sat up. Then I closed my eyes and swayed as a wave of dizziness came over me.

Light filtered through the entrance. It showed me the cave I'd taken up temporary residence in.

Surprise. I wasn't lying on the floor of the cave. Instead, I'd curled up on a kind of ledge at the back, huddled into a niche cut into the wall. A cave within a cave. One of them conveniently situated.

I gritted my teeth. I climbed to my feet and swayed again. Or foot, rather, because my ankle, the one I'd shredded when circling around, hurt too much to put any weight on. I _hopped_ towards the entrance to the cave. Then realized how stupid I was being.

I sat down. Drank some water, because the sudden surges of heat were awful and my throat was dry. I would've eaten what was left of the biscuits, but the thought of food made me nauseous.

I took a deep breath and unwound the strip of fabric I'd tied around the wound.

I stared at the injury. I looked away. But then, inexorably, my eyes were drawn back to the cut.

It was not pretty.

Neither was the bandage, which I turned over and retied. I should have changed it, but I was running out of jacket.

And I had a mission to complete.

Swallowing past the lump in my throat, limping awkwardly, trying to clear my brain, I walked out of the cave and began to creep vaguely stealthily up the mountain.

----

I almost needn't have bothered about making a noise. They made plenty of it themselves. I heard them –their voices and their strange laughter –before I got anywhere close. Nearby –well, I wasn't being too quiet. I mean, I was human. Not the best shape for stealth. Add that to the fact that I gasped in pain every so often and kept lurching, and you've got one none-too-quiet tracker.

But they didn't even notice.

You know I said they seemed familiar? They did, but not because I'd seen them before. You know what they reminded me of? Dogs.

Not so much the way they looked, although that –seen between twigs and leaves –was vaguely canine. It was the way they acted. Bounding around. Chasing each other. Having fun.

Andalites look sort of like centaurs. These creatures looked sort of like dogs. And the way they were running around having fun in their doglike way made me think of the golden, underground land of the Chee, and the horde of dogs that they kept down there.

If I'd had my head in gear, I might have made the connection right then. But I doubt it. I mean, it was impossible. It was only later that it all made sense. Even then, I asked quite a few questions before I was satisfied.

I watched them, and learned.

At first –after I got over the nervousness of being close to an unknown alien species –all I could think of was that the Yeerks would really, really like to have this species as their slaves.

I mean, they were _fast_. Have you ever seen a racehorse? Or any horse at all, running? Or jumping? Here's what I saw: These aliens could run nearly as fast as a horse. Not quite as fast, but fast. And could they jump! I saw one of them jump maybe three times its own height.

I was fascinated. Amazed. Maybe just a little bit wistful.

They'd taken up residence on the side of the mountain, not far from the treeline. I figured they must've landed their ship on the other side of the mountain, where, incidentally, I couldn't see it. And for some reason I wasn't too keen on creeping around to get a look.

I told myself it was better to stay safe.

I watched them for a whole day. At first it was just duty, my responsibility. But after a while, I watched them in a kind of daze. I just crouched there, staring at them. Taking in the way they spoke to each other. Absorbing their speech, their movement, their actions.

For hours I huddled behind bushes and trees, sipping water when I dared, watching them tensely. And yet, I wasn't all that afraid. I had to _remind _myself to be afraid. They somehow put me at ease, without even speaking to me.

Although maybe it was just the fact that I hadn't been noticed after two hours and wasn't likely to be because of the noise.

I wanted to like them. I…well, I really wanted to like them. They _made_ you want to like them. But if there's one thing this war has taught me, it's suspicion. So I kept myself neutral. Watched them. Tried to learn.

Even an Andalite, someone like Ax or Elfangor, can have a Yeerk slug locked inside, and one that happens exterior appearances are irrelevant. The creature, no matter what its natural personality, will be under the control of the Yeerk. Will have to carry out the Yeerk's intents.

I wished, wished, wished that it wasn't the case.

There were a couple of times that I could have sworn I caught them watching me. One of them in particular started to look familiar. One time I was staring at a couple of younger ones wrestling, and then felt a tingle on the back of my neck.

I looked up to see the familiar one looking at the bush I was hiding behind.

Closest I'd ever come to a heart attack.

It happened a few more times. I'd catch one of them looking sort of in my direction, and then saying something I couldn't hear. But they always turned away after a second or two. After a while, when none of them came to get me, I started to relax.

The thing that really caught my attention happened at sunset.

Up until then, they'd been acting all over the place. Some would be playing what looked like a board game. Others would be trying to jump onto tree branches that were still attached to the tree.

But at sunset, that changed. They stopped what they were doing. Stood up. Formed into loose groups that merged into one large group, maybe fifty of the aliens, which scattered across the hillside.

They turned to face the setting sun. Then each of them held out an arm, the palm of the hand towards the sun.

They all spoke together. They said the same words. A single phrase. Spoken with an air of ritual about it.

"_Tenra chee eyona alsen mer, erenet._"

Needless to say, I didn't understand. But I sat there, caught by the beauty and respect that infiltrated the…ritual? Ceremony? I didn't know quite what it was. A custom, perhaps, that was also a ritual…

For a few seconds after they had spoken, the air was full of unaccustomed silence. I heard the breeze, and birdsong, and the rustle of leaves. I heard, faintly, a stream flowing further down the hill. It seemed to me right then that all of nature was holding its breath, preserving itself, frozen into that one, beautiful moment.

They lowered their hands, and movement and sound returned in the form of running, jumping, and sudden outbursts of bluejay laughter.

I ducked, crawled, scuttled, and crept away until the little Alien Central was out of sight. Then I walked down the slope, back towards the cave.

My ankle gave out in a savage surge of pain. I collapsed to the ground and rolled down the dusty track.


	7. Dying

Disclaimer: I still don't own it. Nothing new, eh?

Chapter seven.

I fell.

For some moments I lay on the dusty ground, fighting for breath. My ankle blazed with pain. The ground went in and out of focus and I…couldn't…breathe!

I tried to get up and couldn't. Collapsed back down, sobbing. My eyesight was blurry with tears and pain. I couldn't see…couldn't hear…and my foot was falling off, it had to be…

I still don't know how I did it. I just wanted to lie there. But somehow, somewhere, in some tiny, distant part of my brain, I knew I couldn't. Somehow, I knew I had to move. And somehow, gulping for air, I managed to twist myself over and slowly, painfully drag myself up onto my hands and knees.

I moved. I crawled, dragging one leg and then hissing, almost shrieking in pain. I hauled and dragged and pulled myself along and the effort almost killed me, but I did it. I made it to the cave.

My head spun. I hauled myself inside. I wasn't on my knees now, I was lying down and using my hands to get me across the stone floor, dragging myself I didn't know where. My head was spinning and my heart was pounding and my whole body was shaking. I tried to curl up and couldn't. Could barely roll onto my side.

My body flushed hot…cold…hot…

I was burning, I was freezing. I was sick.

_Morph! _I thought.

_I promised,_ I thought.

_Better break a promise than be dead_, said my mind.

_Morph!_ But morph what?

Anything. It didn't matter. I could morph anything I liked, because the only purpose was to save my life.

It didn't matter, so I chose squirrel at random.

I closed my eyes and focused.

Nothing happened.

I tried to morph. Tried again and again. But my concentration was shattering and I didn't have the strength. There was no energy left in me to start the morph, to turn me into a squirrel and save my life.

Too late, I realized how foolish I had been. Too late, I knew that I should have morphed when I collapsed, instead of using up my strength in dragging myself to perceived safety, to the shelter that was going to be my grave.

I had made a mistake, and this time it was going to be fatal.

I didn't want to die, but I was dying.

They say your whole life passes before your eyes when you die. It has some truth in it. I lay there, miles from everything I'd ever cherished, and saw…

I saw my mum, I saw my dad, and I wished that I could tell them I loved them. I saw Jake, I saw Rachel. I saw all the people I'd fought beside and valued.

Here, at the end of my life, was the only time I could tell what I was losing.

No one would know where I was. No one would come to find my body. No one would bury me, weep over me, send me to the grave. I would lie here, out in the woods, as my flesh decayed and my skin rotted, and in a year there would only be the bones to say that a girl named Cassie had died in this cave, in this place.

Maybe it was for the best. I would die, and my secrets would die with me. I would become part of the world I had fought for.

The world I could no longer fight for.

I closed my eyes to the rock walls, to the plants outside. I closed my eyes on my life. I closed…

I drifted…

Death came for me, and I saw it as a black figure that stretched out an arm to take me from my body.

Arms wrapped around me and lifted me.

And then I felt nothing anymore.

----

Something happened.

I was dimly aware of movement. I was being touched, turned. I felt it without feeling it, in the darkness of death.

Everything rushed away from me.

I opened eyes that did not belong to me and saw a whitish-green surface that vanished as darkness returned.

And then…at the edge of my mind, I sensed something wonderful.

And I heard, or thought I heard, the Ellimist laugh.

----

My body returned to me.

It was different. No pain.

I opened my eyes –_my_ eyes, eyes that were mine again –and saw the cave where I had gone to die.

It was the same cave. But a few things had changed.

I frowned and sat up, and realized that something was wrapped around me. I tugged at it. It was a sheet of some thin, warm fabric. It had been pulled around me like a blanket. And something soft was lying on the floor of the niche in the wall. I was sitting on it.

I looked at my ankle, dreading what I'd see.

Nothing. The injury, the dreadful infection…gone. Nothing left to show for it but a few small cuts, half-healed, and covered with a kind of gel.

I couldn't believe my eyes.

I looked around at the cave again. My pack and jacket were where I'd left them, but there was a small bundle of cloth next to them, and what looked like a covered bowl beside that.

I should have been dead. And yet, here I was. Whole and well again. Apparently unharmed, and with strange objects in the place I'd fallen asleep.

How had it happened? _Who_ had caused it to happen?

I got up. Moved cautiously, with the demands of habit.

I nudged the cloth bundle tentatively with my foot.

It didn't make sense.

Someone had to have come into the cave, seen me, _helped_ me for unknown reasons, and then gone.

Who?

Whoever they were, they probably didn't mean me harm. If they had, why help me? I'd been dying. It must have been hard to bring me back.

I shook out the bundle.

It was a tunic, fairly shapeless but large enough to cover me from shoulder to knee.

The bowl turned out to contain a kind of thick soup and a sort of spoon.

The visitor had not only cured my ankle, they'd provided me with food, bedding, and clothing.

Why?

I didn't know. But I did feel hungry, so I ate the soup.

I tested my ankle. It was a little sore, but compared to the last couple of days it felt wonderfully, gloriously well.

There was a noise at the mouth of the cave. I looked up.

An alien, one of the ones I'd been watching, was standing there.

It looked straight at me, and I could've sworn it smiled.


	8. Asking Questions

Disclaimer: I don't own the Animorphs, I don't own the aliens (guess who they are) and I certainly don't own Cassie.

Chapter Eight.

I stared at the creature, the alien. My mind began working properly, making connections.

The food, the shapeless clothing. The beings that knew where I was, and were capable of spaceflight.

The visitor stood at the entrance to the cave, and…smiled. How did I know it was a smile? It just _was_. It was all over her face. Normally when an alien smiles it's weird. Hork-Bajir smiles are just plain scary. Andalite smiles focus on the eyes. But the way this creature smiled was sort of human. And I liked it.

She said something, in that growly, fluid language of theirs. Needless to say, I didn't understand a word.

She frowned –a sort of creasing over her muzzle –and tried again.

I shook my head helplessly. I felt a little vulnerable, standing there in just my morphing outfit.

She looked at me, and tilted her head. Then she tapped her chest and said, "Inest." It was a strange word –_eye-nest_.

And again, "Inest." That time, I guessed she meant it was her name.

And then she pointed at me, and said something else. I guessed she was asking for my name. Well, it couldn't hurt. Much.

I pointed at myself and said, "Cassie."

One of her ears flipped, and I grinned. I couldn't help it.

Okay, so I guess I knew that it might not be an entirely good thing that they knew about me. But they'd saved my life. And from what I'd seen of them, they were pretty friendly people.

The alien –Inest –came over to me. She crouched down and touched my ankle gently, checking the cuts. She straightened up again and touched my face. Then she gestured for me to follow her and went out of the cave.

I followed her. I didn't have anything else to do.

----

One thing about these aliens.

I said they were friendly. I said they were energetic.

They were both of the above. But they were also extremely curious.

Curious, as in less than en minutes after Inest and I had joined up with a couple more of them, they were talking to me in a very questioning way. I couldn't understand a word. Did that deter them? Nope. Far from it. If anything, they got even more interested.

Now that I was close to them –close up and able to see them clearly –something about them bothered me. It was like there was a little voice in the back of my head, niggling at me. It kept saying that there was something I'd forgotten. Something important. It kept saying that I'd seen something about them, long ago.

But how could I, when I'd never seen them before?

I tried to put it out of my mind. But it stayed with me.

And so did the worrying question of what they'd done with their ship.

But for a while I was able to…what, exactly? I suppose it was something like putting my life on one side. Because out here, in the sun and the breeze, surrounded by creatures who seemed to want nothing more than to have fun, it was so, so wonderfully easy to put away my memories of the war.

You have no idea how much the war had been dragging on me. Come to that, _I_ hadn't known just how much the constant danger had affected me. Hadn't known until some of it was lifted.

I mean, yeah, I was surrounded by aliens, and my track record with aliens is that a fair percentage of them would very much like to kill me. (Or, failing that, to slither through my ear and wrap themselves around my brain.) But the feeling I had about these aliens was like the feeling I'd had about Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. And so I stayed, and allowed myself to bask in it.

There were about sixty of them, I guessed. They moved around a lot, so it was difficult to tell. A fair enough number –about the size of the Hork-Bajir colony –but not too many. Though more than I thought I'd seen the day before.

And children. Yes, some of them were children.

They were smaller than the adults, of course, but what they lacked in size they made up for in sheer manic energy. I don't think they knew the meaning of the term 'stay still'. They just ran. Ran all over the place, moving very, very fast. And they tried to climb trees, which was just about impossible for them.

Later, I leaned that the only way Inest's kind could climb a tree was to take a jump onto the lowest branch, and then to 'walk' from branch to branch. They couldn't grip a branch with their legs, the way a human can. But that's beside the point.

As I said, the children were full of energy. And they were about as curious –and friendly –as the adults.

I was tired. All the activity had worn me out. So, despite the fact that it was still morning, I went and sat down on a rock out of the way, maybe thinking to get some sleep.

One of the children came up to me, a female with a silver glint in her yellow fur. She was carrying something very carefully. She came up to me and held it out, and I saw that it was a small bird with a crooked leg.

Incredible, it seemed to me, that on a different planet, this one could find it in her to be kind to a bird. But then, when I thought about it, wasn't that the kind of thing I'd do?

I took the bird, very gently. I found a small stick, straightened the leg, and tied it to the stick with a strip torn from my ragged leotard.

The child smiled, one of those funny smiles that went all over her face. She laughed, that strange _chuk-chuk-chuk_ laugh that they had.

I looked around at the world. _My _world. The world I had sought to rescue, to save. Whether it be from humanity or from the Yeerks.

Inest came up to me. Said something to the girl. Looked at me.

Then she said, "What?"

Yes. 'What'. Her first word in English, and it was 'what'. Which, to be fair, was the word I'd been using the most.

"Cah-ssie. What?"

I kind of stared at her. Okay, so now she was picking up my _language_?

Well, it would make communication easier…

I waved my arm at the group on the slope.

"There are so many of you. And you're all so happy. I can't remember the last time I felt like that. And you help injured birds! They aren't even native to wherever you come from, but you care about them more than some _humans_ I've met! And Inest…" I was going to say, _What are you?_ But I didn't. There are some things you just don't ask. I think I sensed even then that I wouldn't believe the answer.

Because, you see, I sort of knew, already, what the answer would be.


	9. Answers that Confuse

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything.

Chapter Nine.

I walked around the slope.

I didn't do much. I talked to Inest. I'm no teacher, but she didn't seem to need one. She just listened to the way I spoke and mimicked the structure and rhythm of my words.

She loved to learn.

These aliens, these people. They were intelligent, that much was obvious. Intelligent and curious, and far more friendly than aliens usually were. And strange. Strange that they bore such a resemblance to Earth's own creatures.

All so strange.

But, like I said, I ignored this weird fact. The universe was a huge place, right? Trees appeared all over the place, didn't they? Surely some ecosystem out there had to spit out a creature that looked like something you'd find on Earth. To tell the truth, it was kind of comforting to find an alien species which didn't look so crazy it made you gawp.

You know, like seven-foot bladed monsters with T-rex feet. Or rat-sized brain-stealing slugs.

I talked to Inest, a little. Much less than she'd have liked. But with half my mind on the problems I'd been thinking about, and the other half –okay, more like three-quarters –on the happiness around me, I didn't really have much I could say. Good grief, half of what I _did_ say was either rambling about Earth's flora and fauna or short comments on Inest's people.

The slope, so near the peak of the mountain, was beautiful, covered with green grass and scattered with flowers. There were animals in the woods, a stream winding among the trees a short walk down.

Yes, beautiful. The sunlight turned golden as the sun sank, and with all of them, yellow-furred and happy, still running around, chasing each other, laughing their _chuk-chuk-chuk_ laugh, they made me think again of the park the Chee had built under the city.

It was almost amusing, what was lying beneath my town. The Yeerks had built a hell down there, and the Chee had constructed heaven.

Two underground worlds: One all bare rock and cages and screams, the other the essence of the countryside on a beautiful summer's day. One so huge and solid that you felt daunted when you entered it; the other calming, happy, so wonderful that it took away, however briefly, whatever sorrow you had.

So different. Heaven and hell, yet both built under our feet. Side by side.

I was getting tired, again. And, as the sun dropped towards the horizon, I saw them starting to gather into the loose, large group I'd seen before.

I walked back down the path, to the cave I'd started to think of as, if not home, then my 'base'.

This time, I didn't fall over.

----

I curled up on my rock ledge, wrapped the blanket around me, and slept.

I slept quite well, surprisingly. But all through my dreams, the nagging question chased me. It made me think of golden skies, orange blood, of pink-and-silver trees.

I woke up with a metal and ivory face fading from my brain, and a word whispering in my ears…

_Friend._

It wasn't yet dawn. I got up, shrugged off the blanket, gasped at the cold air, and walked outside, the icy rock freezing my bare feet.

Outside, the sky was beginning to lighten. It made the clouds stand like wispy white ghosts against the dark night sky.

I walked up the path, to the bare crown of the mountain. Dew brushed off the grass onto my skin.

A kind of small structure –rather like a tent –was standing not far away. One of the aliens was sitting outside it, her legs folded back under her body. Another was standing beside her, his arm resting on her shoulder. They looked up as I got closer, and smiled their infectious full-face smiles.

We couldn't understand each other's language, but I realized we didn't need to. There was no need to use words. Our bodies and purposes spoke for themselves. There was no need for talking, in the shared peace of the early day.

It was enough that we were there.

I gazed at the lightening sky and allowed my thoughts to drift. To my home. To my life. It was a pretty good life, I saw that now. I mean, yeah, it could be creepy, and scary, and downright dangerous. And, yeah, I didn't like killing, or coming within a hair of death myself.

But I had my friends. I had Rachel, insane, wonderful Rachel. I had Marco, and Tobias, and Ax, and my parents, who'd cared for me and loved me and brought me up to care for life in all its various forms. I had Jake, who loved me. I had the magnificent, sweeping landscape of Earth. And, even with all its attendant dangers, I had the power to morph.

I closed my eyes and felt the breeze on my face.

I knew what it was like to fly, to glide. To ride the thermals in the shape of a bird. To soar free over all of this. To brush the bellies of the clouds.

I had so much more than other people did.

I also had an empty stomach. So I headed off down the hill to raid a couple of blackberry bushes.

The berries filled my stomach with food and my mind, once more, with questions.

These people, these aliens, had taken me in. But I knew very little about them. Their anatomy was alien, strange, but not terribly so. They used a vocal language which, in tone and rhythm, echoed the structure of human speech –very different to the guttural, harsh Hork-Bajir tongue. They seemed to have no fear, but rather than springing from absolute confidence, this lack of fear seemed rooted in their not understanding the meaning of 'attack'.

Which led to the question…what were they?

I couldn't ask outright. I didn't think they'd understand me, and they might not give me an honest answer. Or any answer at all. And if they did give me an answer, there was no guarantee that I'd know what it meant. Or that it would be a full answer.

But I wanted a clue. So, while the day was young and most of them were probably sleeping, I casually wandered off around the peak of the mountain to see if I could spot their ship. Their mysterious, nearly-invisible ship.

It wasn't particularly difficult.

They'd sunk it into the side of the mountain, into the soft earth. Visible from many angles, but concealed from below by the trees that pressed against its flanks. Whatever shielding they'd used to hide it from prying eyes was gone. I could see it clearly.

It was incredibly familiar.

I'd last seen something like it a year ago.

Big. Green. Lying on the seabed, five kilometers down. Visible as a huge, faintly glowing Snoopy to the eyes of the giant squid.

A Pemalite ship.


	10. A Reason for Being

Disclaimer: I don't own the Animorphs, and I don't own the Pemalites.

A/N: Yes, I know I'm kind of dancing on quicksand here. But hear me out, okay? There is logic buried in there, somewhere. Congratulations to everyone who guessed right.

Chapter Ten.

A Pemalite ship.

For a moment, I really think my heart stopped.

I'd been taken in, cared for, by Pemalites.

My life had been saved by an ancient race that had been annihilated millions of years ago.

And then, with sudden clarity, all the pieces fell into place.

Their canine features, similar to dogs or wolves –the animals the Chee had put the essence of their dying creators into. Their happy, friendly, doglike way of behaving. The kindness and decency that had prompted them into saving me. Even the fact that they had saved my life was in itself a testimony to their advancement.

Of course I thought I'd seen them before, because I had –but not in the flesh.

I'd seen them as a hologram, when Erek the Chee had told us where he and his fellow androids had come from. I'd seen them playing, having fun. I had heard their _chuk-chuk-chuk_ laughter.

I'd seen them dying, in a hologram.

All of it suddenly fitted together. Even the similarities between their language and human languages. The Chee had been around on Earth for a long time. Long enough for Pemalite inflections to have entered our speech.

I stared at the ship, feeling a strange mixture of wonder and terror.

Wonder, because I had met with a long-dead race.

Terror, because of the same.

The Pemalites had known nothing of war. And they were dead, or I'd thought they were, at least partly because of that fact. But they were here.

I really, really could not understand.

But I knew one thing. I had to stay here. For reasons I couldn't quite yet understand, I had to stay here, on top of this mountain. It was sheer gut feeling, at least right then, but I knew it.

My attention was so focused on the ship that I didn't notice Inest until she was standing right beside me.

"Pemalite," I said softly, looking at her.

"Pemalite, _che_," she agreed.

For a moment we stood in solemn silence, sensing the importance of the moment.

Then Inest took my hand and gently led me away from the ship. That huge, battered, beautiful ship.

----

We went back out, back out of the forest and into the sunshine, where the Pemalites seemed to spend most of their time –out on the grassy summit, playing on the slope.

As usual, from what I'd seen, the place was already becoming rather active. The children –six or seven of them –were chasing each other around in a circle. A few adults were playing, of all things, what looked like a card game.

Yes, a card game. Though it used some pretty weird cards.

I can't tell you what was going through my mind right then. Amazement, excitement, a desire to ask questions. I don't know. But I am sure of one thing –I really wanted to talk to someone.

As in, someone who would understand what I was saying. Someone who would be able to communicate with me, reply to me. Someone who didn't have a grasp of English limited to twelve words.

I guess, yeah, I could have morphed osprey and flown home. And, oh, I wanted to. But who could I have talked to? The other Animorphs probably hated my guts right about now, and as for the Chee…well, imagine explaining to a million-year-old android that their supposedly-extinct creators are walking around on a mountain. See where I'm coming from?

Besides…I'd promised. And a promise is a promise. The only thing worth breaking a promise for is the threat of death.

In addition to which, there was the very _strong_ feeling I had which said 'stay here'. That feeling really, okay, _felt_ like it should be listened to.

There was so much I wanted to know. So many other thoughts and doubts welling up inside me that I didn't know what to do with them or even which to pay attention to. Some of them were big thoughts, and some were small, and the overriding one was that…I wanted to talk.

"Inest," I said.

"_Che._"

I laughed. It all seemed so funny suddenly. I was standing on the top of a mountain with a Pemalite, to whom I was about to say a lot of very confusing things, while a hefty chunk of a galactic war played out in a city maybe a few dozen miles from here.

Oh, and said galactic war had just had another species thrown into the game.

I stopped laughing.

The realization slammed into me like a hammer blow.

The Yeerks. The Yeerks we had prevented from getting hold of the Pemalite ship. We had worried about what they would do with Pemalite technology.

What would they do if they could infest the Pemalites themselves? If they could reach directly into Pemalite minds and discover _how_ their technology worked? If they could twist that technology and wrap it directly into their evil schemes?

The Pemalites had been more advanced in their time than the Andalites were today. The Yeerks would become unstoppable.

I had to tell someone! _But who?_

"Inest," I said. I guess something in my voice must have got through to her. She turned to me.

"What?"

Yes, I had to tell someone. Telling Inest would be more or less useless, because she wouldn't understand, but it would help me get my thoughts in order.

I didn't even know where to start. So I started with the war, and the morphing power –things I could talk about now because right _now _she couldn't understand me –and then I went on to the question of how they could possibly alive, this old, old race, and the surprise I felt, and all the guilt and pain the war had unloaded on me. I rambled at length on the strange serenity of this place –the air of peace that existed despite all the madcap activity. I talked about my friends.

I ran out of things to say. But I felt good for saying them. Like a weight had been taken off my chest.

Inest was still standing there patiently. I'd been talking for a while.

"Sorry," I said lamely.

She put her hand on my wrist. I looked at it, the stubby-fingered hand covered in short, soft fur.

"You _need_ to…say?"

"Talk."

"_Che._ You need to talk. I am…not…" She seemed to be struggling for a word.

"Upset?" I suggested.

"Not upset, as you say." She smiled, and my heart glowed.

I realized something else that day. It was a day for revelations. I realized why I had to stay there.

Pemalites don't fight.

If the Yeerks came, as they surely would, I would be the only line of defence.


	11. Calm Before the Storm

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Animorphs-y.

Chapter Eleven.

I didn't feel very comfortable for the first couple of nights up there.

Part of it was that I was still sleeping in a cave. I don't know why I was sleeping in a cave. I guess, on some level, part of me wanted to stay separate. To keep all the violence in me away from them. Because, you know, war stains. The marks are invisible most of the time, but they're there. You can't erase them. Once war touches you, it stays.

So I slept in my cave.

But that wasn't the only reason I was uncomfortable. The basic _wrongness_ of what I was doing pressed down on me.

I'd run away from the war. Yet here I was, prepared to fight again, after meeting people who didn't understand war…

I worried about my parents. I love them, you know? They taught me a lot. How to help animals in need. How to love. They brought me up and cared for me, and lately it felt like I was repaying them with lies.

By now, they probably thought I was dead.

I curled up. I felt like crying.

Yes, they would think I was dead. They would hold out hope for a while, but I'd already been missing for at least four days. By now, their hope had to be running out. Before long, they would know that I was never coming back.

And I hated myself for it.

There was nothing to stop me from morphing osprey and flying home right now. And, man, I wanted to do it. In a matter of hours I could be lying in my own home, in my own bed. My parents would be happy. I would be happy.

And the Yeerks might find the Pemalites and attack them. Steal their technology. Bring about the final doom of an ancient race.

No. Not while I lived to prevent it.

_My life, my parents…or the world? Which to choose?_

I wanted to choose my parents. But, you know, sometimes other things are more important. Sometimes you have to rip your heart out of your chest and throw it away, and try not to cry.

Maybe, someday, I would be able to return. I hoped so.

But, until then, I was stuck to this mountain. And I was going to have to live with it.

----

I lived with it. And, once you got used to being surrounded by weird, bipedal canine aliens, it was actually pretty fun.

I got used to it fast. I've had a lot of experience with weird. I've had a lot of experience with aliens.

Mind you, nothing –except maybe running a dog home and a high-tech facility –prepares you for dealing with Pemalites.

There were about a hundred or so of them that I saw. They'd come out of the ship slowly, which was why I'd seen increasing numbers of them over the first few days. They'd been on the ship for generations, and they were fond of it, but they liked being outside more.

I suppose that after living all your life in close confinement, you're glad to get out and stretch your legs.

They had all kinds of jobs, except that they weren't exactly jobs. Some of them knew a lot about computers, and others were good at biology, and some were better than others at medical problems. But they weren't _jobs_. It was just…stuff that they did. Things they were good at, and would do for the good of everyone else. It wasn't like work.

Everything was a game, to them. There was a joke in every situation. Always something worth laughing about. There was always something worth learning, and, man, they wanted to learn.

So they learned English. At least, some of them did. Not all of them. Inest learned it, a couple of the children, a few adults. The others seemed to focus on learning about Earth, its animals and plants, its weather. And the rest of them just had fun.

I enjoyed it too. But I had questions of my own.

And, when Inest and I could talk reasonably well to each other, I asked them.

"How come you're here?"

Inest glanced at me. "We landed here. In the ship."

"Yeah, I know. But _how…_"

"You'd have to ask Ionos about that one. I don't know much about engines."

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?"

I thought for a minute. "You're Pemalites."

"Yes. I'm curious –how did you know? I didn't tell you." She suddenly looked hopeful. "Are there…others? Here?"

I bit my lip. "No. I mean, I know some of them came here, but they died. It was thousands of years ago." _Oh, great! How am I supposed to explain __**that**__ one?_

"Oh." Inest looked sombre. "But they left something. Something that told you…what we are."

"They did," I confirmed. "And something that told us about…about the Howlers." I watched her face carefully. Saw no reaction. "It told us that they attacked you. That all the Pemalites were dead. So how –?"

Inest stared at a flower. She looked up at me, her dark eyes searching me. It was as though she saw everything I felt. Marco says I know what people feel five minutes before they do. And it's true I'm good at knowing how people think. Inest had the same kind of ability.

"It's hard to kill a spacefaring race," she said finally.

I had to be content with that.

I try now to remember those days. All two and a half weeks of them. Because, though I was more than slightly miserable about my family, and worried about the Yeerks, it was secluded up there. Cut off. And it was a happy place.

It still is.

But that's how I try to remember it. Before everything happened that opened a pathway from my little idyll back into the world.


	12. Returning

Disclaimer: I don't own Animorphs or anything related.

A/N: SouthernBelle –thanks for the comment! You raised a couple of points I hadn't really thought of, and I'll try to work the answers into the story.

Chapter Twelve.

I stared down at Inest, gritted my teeth, and tried to shut off my hearing. Unsuccessfully. I winced as her cry of pain went through my head.

Wait, that's not quite the start. But it _was_ important. To everyone.

It hadn't seemed like much at first. She'd been complaining of pain under her skin a while after she'd woken up. Nothing much. Just sore muscles, we all thought –she slept out on the ground a lot. But then it got worse.

It was now midmorning, and Inest was crying out with pain, hurling her canine-human head back and grasping desperately at the hand of the Pemalite standing next to her.

She was sick. Everyone knew she was sick. But it was a kind of sickness I'd never seen before –something that seemed to have no symptoms but the constant, wracking pain.

It nagged at me.

It nagged at everyone. I could tell. As much as any human can read Pemalite facial expressions, I can read theirs, and…well, they were about as disturbed as Pemalites get. The healers had run test after test, trying to find the disease. So far, no results.

And that's why I was now sitting there gritting my teeth, trying to block out the howling shrieks Inest let out with every painful spasm.

"There has to be _someone_ who can help," I whispered.

A healer crouched down beside Inest and injected something into her arm. A minute later, her shrieks quietened.

"You've fixed it?" I asked. I guessed I sounded more hopeful than I should have.

The healer shook his head. "It's a painkiller. She can't feel anything, but…it won't last forever…"

Inest smiled weakly. She said something in the strange Pemalite language that I didn't understand.

No way out. No way out. No way out…

I suddenly couldn't bear to be there any more. I got up, backed away, and ran. I ran up the slope, to the top of the mountain. I hunkered down in the soft earth.

And I began to change.

It was a life-or-death situation. I'd like to say that I wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been a life-or-death situation –and yeah, the whole messy issue was why I panicked enough to try. The whole situation was what I wanted to get _away_ from. But I didn't feel good about it.

I shrank. From five feet to three. To two. To one and a half. Feather patterns rose on my skin and became three-dimensional. My feet and legs became scaly. My arms shifted backwards and flattened into wings. My breastbone deepened, forming a kind of keel to which my wing muscles attached.

Finally, my vision went laser-sharp, allowing me to spot fish beneath the water.

I spread my wings and flapped, rising slowly off the ground until I caught a headwind and was carried along, gaining altitude more rapidly. I circled around over the site.

From up here, with these eyes, I could see so clearly. I could see…everything.

Everything.

I'd delayed my search for too long. Surely the site would be fine without me for an hour or so. What were the chances of the Yeerks attacking in the few moments I wasn't there?

I flew higher and higher, soaring on a thermal. I was alone up here. It was me and the sky. The world and all its concerns were a long way away.

It was strange to be flying alone. Strange, to be in the sky with no other birds of prey swooping and hovering around me. Strange, to see no hawk, no eagle, no falcon.

My heart wrenched.

I flew higher, higher. And then I stopped stretching for altitude, and began to turn height into distance. See, when you're high up, you can kind of surf down through the air in any direction, using gravity and air resistance to get you the speed and distance you want. It's very fast, and very easy, and it costs you less in terms of strength.

I had a vague idea of the direction I'd come to get here. That meant I had a vague idea of where the city ought to be, although I had no clue how far away it was. For now, though, all I had to do was find it. This isn't all that difficult, when you're a bird.

I found the town.

For a while –probably far too long –I debated flying down and finding my friends. But all the crazy things that had kept me away were running through my head. I knew I had to order my thoughts, to be able to explain myself.

I _knew _all that.

I found the school, flew down, and landed in a tree outside. I stared through a window. There was a lesson on science in progress. The teacher was talking about the blood system.

Someone sitting there. Third from the front, fourth along. Biting her lip. Her golden hair messy, not groomed to its usual perfection.

Rachel.

_Rachel._

Oh, I missed her.

I swear, if I could have cried right then, I would have. I almost flew in through the window.

Instead, I spoke to her.

<Rachel, > I said in private thought-speech.

Her head came up sharply, and her eyes widened.

<It's me, > I said simply.


	13. A slight clash of tempers

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Animorphs, nor any of the species presented in this story.

Chapter Thirteen.

**Jake.**

She was dead.

She was dead.

That was all I'd been thinking for the last three weeks –all I'd been able to think.

Cassie –_my_ Cassie, the Cassie I'd loved and kissed and fought beside –was dead. Not dead in battle against the Yeerks, the way we'd always thought that one of us –if we were to die –would go.

No. She was dead of infection. Of blood poisoning. Of something so, so _human_ that it almost seemed absurd.

There was no body. There was still a chance for hope, I guessed. But it was very faint.

Fact was, if she was still alive, she would have found a way to get back. She would have gone home. For a week, for two weeks, we'd managed to hold onto our hope. But now…well, the traces of infected blood pretty much told their own story. And from the air, we'd seen tracks –scuffed up earth, as though someone had been moving slowly, weakly –that led to a cliff, and to the river. Could have been someone else's tracks, but we…we were thinking the worst.

Three weeks. By now, I knew she wasn't coming back.

They were going to bury her in two days. There would be no body at the funeral, just an empty coffin. Nothing tangible was there to bury.

I –all of us –lived as normally as possible. I went to school, did my work. I carried on functioning. But I couldn't keep the tears back, sometimes. I couldn't stop thinking about her.

Cassie. Young, calm, quiet, loving. Wiser than some people. Caring, nurturing. She'd fought for Earth, for the freedom of humanity, even when she hadn't wanted to. I closed my eyes and saw her, working in the barn, morphing dolphin, smiling…

I opened my eyes again and tried to focus on the textbook. The letters were blurry. I swiped the back of my hand across my face. It came away wet.

Cassie. Dead.

The bell rang. I got up, moving mechanically. I put my stuff away. Walked out of the room. My mind not really registering the building around me. My face locked into the same blank, miserable expression I'd been wearing for what felt like a year.

And that was when Rachel walked up to me.

I hadn't been paying much attention to Rachel lately. I mean, I'd noticed when her carefully-applied appearance had started falling apart. And I'd noticed that she, too, had been mourning. But I hadn't really _looked_ at her for a few days.

But this time there was something about her that caught my eyes. Something in her expression. Something fierce and confused and urgent that made me want to hear what she was thinking.

"Behind the gym," she muttered as she brushed past me. "Five minutes."

What can I say? I didn't have anything else to do.

----

I walked down there with Marco. Marco looked morose. Not that he'd been anything but grim for the last week and a half.

There's a space behind the gym. Bare earth, a few weeds. Not a very inviting place, and a bit difficult to get to. But with the gym one side, the wall on another, and a few straggly trees on the remaining sides, it's as private a place as you can hope for on the school grounds.

Rachel was already there, leaning against the gym wall.

And there was an osprey sitting in a tree.

Don't ask me how I knew. I mean, I'm not psychic or anything. But I had a strange feeling about that osprey. And I'd seen Cassie morphing that bird more times than I could count.

My breath caught in my lungs. I swear my heart stopped for two eternal seconds.

The osprey hopped out of the tree, flared its wings, and landed.

And then it changed.

It grew. The legs elongated. The three toes shrank and split into five, losing their scales. The feathers collapsed into feather patterns and faded into skin and fabric. The wings widened and narrowed into arms.

The osprey's beak retreated, and Cassie's wonderfully familiar face appeared from the bird's head.

Cassie. My Cassie.

Alive.

I stared at her like she was a miracle –and to me, right at that moment, she really was. Then, as she finished demorphing, I stepped forward and grabbed her in a hug. I just held onto her, revelling in the fact that she was _alive_, she was not dead, she was here and _alive_. I could feel her heart beating in her chest, healthy and strong. I could feel her warm breath on my cheek. She was hugging me back.

I could hear Rachel making a sound halfway between laughing and crying. I think maybe I was making that same sound.

Then I stepped back and yelled, "_Where the heck have you been?_"

----

We huddled behind the gym, the four of us. Marco hunched over. Rachel leaning against the wall. And Cassie, looking upset and guilty and happy, all at the same time.

"We thought you were dead," Rachel said, glaring.

I mean, I was happy to see Cassie –ridiculously happy. I know Rachel was, too. But we'd been through so much, thinking she was dead, that when she showed up alive we were kind of angry that she'd made us go through all of that. By 'kind of angry', of course, I mean furious.

"I nearly was," Cassie said simply.

Add 'confused' to how I felt right then.

"Look, we know you had blood poisoning," I said impatiently. "But going on what Ax told us, for you to still be alive it must have been cured at least two weeks ago. So where have you been? And why, _why _didn't you come back earlier? Do you have any idea what we've all been going through?"

Cassie bit her lip. "I'm sorry, Jake. But I had to…I _had _to…"

"Had to _what?_" Rachel demanded.

"Rachel, there's a Pemalite ship up on top of a mountain out there in the forest."

"What?" Marco said. "I mean, I think the Chee know better than –"

"No, Marco. Not that Pemalite ship. That one's still down in the ocean, as far as I know. This one's different."

"Spaceships," I said slowly, "don't usually go flying around on their own."

"No," Cassie agreed. "And…Jake, the ship on that mountain landed three weeks ago. And it's occupied."

_Occupied_.

Now, normally that word would have had more of an impact on me. As in, slowed me right down to near-coma levels for a moment. But right then, strange as it sounds, the fact that Cassie was alive and well mattered more to me than that some ancient and supposedly extinct species had taken up residence in the national forest.

Although that fact registered.

"Occupied by Pemalites?"

"Yes." Cassie nodded.

I digested this. "And you decided to hang around up there with them letting everyone think you were dead instead of coming back here and _telling_ us all about this?"

Cassie winced, like I'd hit her with something uncomfortable. Like the truth. "Jake…"

"_We thought you were dead,_" Rachel growled. "Do you know what that felt like? Having to go through life for over _two weeks_, thinking your best friend is dead? And now it turns out that…that…"

"We need to tell the Chee about this," Marco interrupted. "I mean, if anyone has the right to know about this, it's them, right?"

"I should have told you," Cassie said softly. "I shouldn't have…I was an idiot. I just kept thinking, what if the Yeerks found them? We'd have lost the war, then."

I laughed. It sounded strange, forced past my lips. "The day you think about tactics rather than people, Cassie, is the day we lose our collective conscience."

I should have been glad that she'd been thinking about the overall good of Earth. I should have been glad that she'd learned to set aside small-scale personal feelings when there were bigger things to do. I should have been glad, like any general would be.

I wasn't.

Like it or not, I'm no general. We're people who happen to be soldiers, not soldiers who happen to be people. And I didn't, on the personal scale, like what Cassie had done.

Besides, it made no tactical sense, either. If more of us knew about it, we'd have a better chance defending it.

We started walking to Erek's house. Cassie walked behind me, talking quietly to Rachel.

By the time we got there, Rachel was looking a little happier.


	14. Telling the Truth

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Animorphs. (Except Inest, and then only sort of.)

Chapter Fourteen.

**Cassie.**

I could not believe what a complete idiot I'd been.

I could only just believe what I'd done –albeit not quite intentionally –to my friends. I'd been willing to rip my own emotions apart, and I'd somehow not quite realised that I'd be doing the same to theirs. Me. _I'd_ failed to see that. Me, the person who knew people better that anyone else in the group. Little sympathetic Cassie.

What had the war done?

Stupid. I'd been stupid. I'd thought I was doing the right thing, and, well, I hadn't.

I mess up that way, sometimes.

Jake was…still angry. No, angry was a mild way of putting it. I knew he was happy to see me alive, but that happiness seemed to be feeding his anger.

Rachel was not so angry. I'd expected her to be worse than the others, but she wasn't. I mean, she _was _still pretty irritated. But not nearly as bad as I'd thought.

By the time we reached Erek's house, I was mired in my own guilt. The others seemed to be more cheerful, however.

Erek wasn't there. We stood around, feeling stupid. I felt more stupid than the others because I was wearing my morphing outfit and no shoes. Think you've ever felt like a dork? Try standing in someone's front garden, barefoot, with a blue aerobics outfit on.

"He should be here in half an hour," Marco said, glancing at his watch.

"We might not _have _half an hour," Jake said grimly. "If the Yeerks have detected the ship…"

"They probably won't have," Rachel said musingly. "I mean, they haven't detected the other one, have they? Except for that time it sent out a signal, when the Chee went down."

"That's right," Marco said, nodding. "Chances are, unless this new ship is broadcasting something the Yeerks can hear, they won't find it. And since no Yeerks have shown up in the last two weeks…"

"We can probably say that they don't know it's there," I concluded.

"Emphasis on 'probably'," Jake said.

"It's as good as we're going to get," Rachel said. "I could morph eagle and go check it out, I guess." She gave me a wink. "I mean, if Cassie can take on whatever the Yeerks throw at this ship, I can wipe the floor with them."

Despite myself, I smiled.

"No," Jake said. "You'd need Cassie to show you where it is, and…and Cassie's staying here."

Marco gave him a sly look. "Worried about her, oh Glorious Leader?"

Jake hesitated, and shot me a look which said, _I don't want to risk losing you again._

I gave him a look back which meant, _You won't ever need to._

Aloud, Jake said, "Look, splitting the group up right now is not something I want to do. Besides, Cassie should be the one to tell them about this."

"How do I do that?" I wondered.

"Easy," Rachel said. "Just tell them."

"You mean, tell a million-year-old android that his creators are still wandering the universe and a ship full of them has landed on a mountain in the national forest?" Marco grinned. "Yeah, I bet _that_ will go down well."

"They'd be pleased, wouldn't they?" Jake said.

"Or else they'd think we were pulling some kind of practical joke," I told him. "Remember, they've spent thousands of years believing that…"

"Oh, yeah." Jake frowned. "Well, we'll just have to hope."

We stood around for a while longer. I shifted around and blew on my fingers. Just as I was wondering if Erek would show before I got frostbite, the gate swung open.

"Hey, guys," Erek said, smiling faintly. "Any reason for the surprise visit?" He looked at me and frowned. "Cassie?"

"Hi, Erek."

"Can we discuss this inside?" Marco interrupted. "Maybe it's just me, but discussing monumentally important alien goings-on in your front garden does not sound like a good idea."

"'Monumentally important alien goings-on'?" Erek asked. "Okay, sure, come in. Good to see you, Cassie. Everyone thought you were dead."

"I gathered," I muttered.

----

Erek's kitchen was warm. It was also indoors. I was surprised at how weird being inside felt –although, given the closest I'd got to 'inside' lately was a cave, maybe that wasn't so surprising. I helped myself to a biscuit.

"So. What's up with you guys?" Erek asked.

Jake shot a glance at me. "Cassie saw a spaceship land on a mountain out in the forest."

Erek frowned again. "A Yeerk spaceship?"

"Not unless the Yeerks have gone into building large green ships with no weapons lately," Marco muttered.

Erek went very still. "Large green ships with no weapons?" he said, carefully.

"Large, green, Snoopy-shaped ships with no weapons," I confirmed.

"You mean…"

"There is a Pemalite ship sitting on a mountain out there in the forest," Rachel said bluntly.

Erek's hologram flickered. For a moment I saw the android underneath. The very Pemalite looking android.

"And you've been out there for the last three weeks?" he asked, looking at me.

"Yes." I hesitated. "Erek…that ship isn't empty."

The hologram flickered again, rather more violently. Erek seemed to be having some trouble retaining his human appearance. I didn't blame him.

"They all died," he said, his voice full of barely restrained emotion. "They _all_ died."

I shrugged helplessly. "Erek, that ship is occupied –or was, last time I checked. I don't know how. I don't know how any of them survived or how they got here or even why they came here, but the fact remains that if the Yeerks find them, we're done for. _They_ are done for. And…"

"Yes." Erek nodded, his hologram stabilising. "I…thank you for telling us."

"So," Marco said, breaking the silence, "are we going to stand around in Erek's kitchen or are we going to make tracks shipwards?"


	15. Decisions Made

Disclaimer: I don't own the Animorphs, the Chee, the Yeerks, or the Pemalites.

Chapter Fifteen.

We couldn't morph and fly from Erek's house. Although Erek was more than capable of keeping up with us in bird morphs, it was simply too dangerous to do it inside the town unless we had to. So we drove out to the edge of town.

There was more than one reason for us doing this, or at least for me requesting it.

See, we wanted to meet up with Ax and Tobias. Which meant my parents' house, the farm.

As usual, my mother wasn't there. She was out at work. I was…sad, really. I missed her. But I was glad, too. My father wasn't there, either. I wanted to see them both. But I knew that meeting them, and then having to leave them again, would be worse for all of us.

Still, it was hard. I felt a painful lump in my throat as I looked around. This was my home, and I was leaving it.

While the others were finding Tobias, I slipped into the barn.

Three minutes later, I came out of the barn and carefully handed Erek a small object. He looked at it, then at me, and nodded.

I turned to the fields and saw Ax, a smudge of tan and blue, running across the grass. Rachel was morphing. Tobias was already in the air.

I closed my eyes and focused. I tried to put aside all the concerns I felt –worry for my parents, for my friends, for the Pemalites, for Inest…

Feather patterns rose on my skin. My arms flattened. My eyesight and hearing went about a hundred times sharper. My toes sharpened. My head changed shape.

I spread my wings and beat them down once, twice, three times, rising slowly into the air until I caught a breeze and used it to lift me. The others were also rising; Rachel stately, majestic in the body of an eagle, Jake lifting more slowly with his smaller wings.

We didn't fly as high as we could –we needed to be low enough for Erek to follow us. But I flapped and soared until I had my bearings, and then I swooped away like an arrow, fast and sure. Moving –I hoped –in the direction of the Pemalite camp.

The others gathered around me.

We flew, we Animorphs, together again, in a loose formation. So far from the town, there wasn't much chance of anyone seeing us, and wondering at the sight of two ospreys, a hawk, a harrier, a falcon, and an eagle flying within metres of each other.

Nor was there much chance of anyone looking down and seeing two seeming humans running at definitely _in_human speeds through the woods –Erek, and another Chee called Jenny who'd shown up as we were morphing.

It was us. Alone with nature.

Ax and Tobias were very curious about my brush with death. At least, Ax was. He was _very _curious about the timing of the intervention. I guess that blood poisoning's a pretty serious thing to Andalites as well as humans.

We flew. And flew. Since we were flying so low, the journey took longer than it had when I'd headed for the town. We had to stop and demorph at one point. Then we were back in the air, chattering and laughing –rather sadly, in my case.

Up, above the trees, following the ground. I saw the mountain ahead. The other mountain, the one between the Pemalites and the town, was behind us.

I flapped. I soared.

(Whoa!) Marco yelled.

(That is one big spaceship,) Tobias commented.

It was a big spaceship. Seeing it from this perspective kind of enhanced the fact. It was bigger than the Blade ship. Maybe half as big as the Dome we'd rescued Ax from.

It was not as big as the Yeerk Pool ship. But we'd seen that up in space. When you are up in space, there are not many things around to give you a reference. You have the moon, and you have the Earth, but it's kind of hard to use those as reference points because you can't judge how far away they are. Around the Pemalite ship, however, there were plenty of trees to refer to. And those trees made the Pemalite ship look very, very large.

Small enough to hide. But still large.

(Not very good at hiding things, are they?) Rachel said. (I mean, come on. If anyone touches down on an alien planet, the first thing they do is pick somewhere their ship won't be easily seen. Right, Ax-man?)

(I think they had scenery in mind, not defence,) I said. (I mean, it's a beautiful place.) It _was_ beautiful.

(Yeah,) Marco said. (And it's maybe a hundred or so miles from our town. Which has the Yeerks. And it's in the forest. Where the Hork-Bajir colony is. Is it just me, or has this section of Earth turned into Alien Central?)

We laughed. I adjusted my wings and went into a descent, right above Erek and Jenny.

Ten minutes later, I landed on the path beside my cave and began my demorph. The others landed around me and began to change –except for Tobias. Erek appeared, walking up the path.

And then I heard footsteps.

Erek's hologram dropped abruptly; came back up, flickering. I turned around.

It was Ionos. The darker-furred Pemalite who had, according to Inest, landed the ship.

She looked about as startled to see Erek as Erek was to see her. Which was rather more startled than my fellow Animorphs were, and they were pretty surprised.

----

We headed into the camp. Ionos seemed surprised to see Erek and Jenny. Surprised, but happy.

The problem –the little problem that had been nagging at me all day, along with all the _other_, larger problems –was Inest.

Jenny took one look at her and flickered violently. It took about five minutes for her to stabilise, and when she did, the look on her face was pure dismay.

"Tell me that's not what I think it is," I said.

"If you're thinking 'Howler germ weapon', then it's what you think it is," Jenny said grimly. "But after thousands of years…I don't see _how_. And only affecting one? It doesn't make any sense!"

One of the healers looked at Jenny and asked her something in their language. Jenny's hologram dropped. She hesitated, then replied in the same language. She sounded rather glum.

"What?" I asked sharply.

"We never found a cure. Never. We tried everything, but…"

I looked at Inest again. She had stopped writhing, but she whimpered in pain every few seconds. Her fingers twitched occasionally.

Something was wrong with her eyes. Normally they were dark, warm, and full of laughter. But now they were gummy around the edges, crusted with green-blue muck. They seemed to have sunk back into her skull.

She was breathing strangely, too. She'd gulp air in, breathe out slow, in slow, blow it all out, pause, and then gulp air in again. I didn't like it.

"No cure," I said quietly, and got to my feet.

I went to find Jake. I eventually found him in my cave, looking around.

"Jake?"

"Mm? Oh, hi, Cassie." He smiled that wonderful slow smile of his. "Nice place you've got here."

"I'm glad you like it. Jake, listen…"

I explained the problem. Jake listened attentively.

"Let me guess," he said at last. "You've come up with a solution, and you're worried I won't like it."

"I'm fairly sure you won't like it, but I'm going to go ahead anyway. I just thought I ought to tell you."

"And?" he prompted.

I took a deep breath. "Erek brought the morphing cube up here."

"Ah." He fell silent, looking at the floor.

Finally, he looked back at me. "Well…"

"She's not like David!" I said angrily.

"I wasn't saying she was!" Jake protested. "Look, Cassie, I'm not saying we should stop her from morphing. She's a Pemalite; we know what the Chee are like. It's just…" He hesitated. "Well, remember Ax? Back when Aftran was nearly killed, and we all came down with that stupid _yamphut_ disease."

"Yes. So what?"

"Ax was sick in morph. Cassie, using the blue box…it might not work."

I felt like I'd had a bucket of water dumped over me. Slowly, I shook my head.

If the disease couldn't be cured by morphing…if it was like the _yamphut_…then I remembered something else. "That sickness was contagious," I said. "_Very_ contagious."

We looked at each other.

There was no logical reason for Jake to care about whether the entire camp of Pemalites came down with some incredibly slow, deadly disease. There was no logical reason whatsoever. But humans aren't just logical. We're capable of caring about things, about _people_, that we have no logical connection to.

Jake looked sick. He stared out of the entrance of the cave. I followed his gaze. A couple of children ran by, laughing.

I knew what he was thinking. I knew it, because sometimes Jake and I think exactly the same things, and this was one of those sorts of times.

"It _might_ work," I said helplessly.

"Yeah. It might." He looked around again at the place where I had almost died. Then he looked back at me. "I'm coming with you."


End file.
